Spotlight | Gabon
Pascaline Bongo and Omar Denis Jr Bongo are latest to be charged in 'ill-gotten gains' case

Congo
'Ill-gotten gains': Sassou clan braces for fresh charges

The Congolese so-called 'ill-gotten gains' case will gather pace in the next months. President Denis Sassou-Nguesso is irked that his granddaughter, Yacine Queenie Bongo, has been summoned by the French courts, who may follow suit with his son, Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso, in late August.

Congo, Gabon
Omar Denis Junior Bongo's Brazzaville dowry sparks hopes of Gabon detente

The grandson of Congolese president Sassou Nguesso has given his fiancée's family a dowry at a ceremony in Brazzaville in the presence Omar Bongo's eldest daughter Pascaline, heralding a further thaw in relations between the two countries.

Congo
President's grandchildren get new lawyer in ill-gotten gains case

Two of the Congolese president's grandchildren - Omar Denis Junior Bongo and Yacine Bongo - now have a new lawyer representing them in the ill-gotten gains case.

Gabon
Gabon given plaintiff status in 'ill-gotten gains' case

The Paris Court of Appeal has granted plaintiff status to the state of Gabon in the "Ill-gotten gains" case, making it the first country involved in the case to obtain that status and providing it with access to the investigation file.

Palace Intrigues
Alassane Ouattara, Henri Konan Bedie, Denis Sassou Nguesso, Emmanuel Macron and Assimi Goita

Intrigues big and small: every Tuesday, Africa Intelligence takes a peek into the corridors of power in Africa and beyond.

Ivory Coast Bedie's secret call to Ouattara

Niger embassies deplore administrative harassment

Congo Omar Denis Jr Bongo feels at home in Malabo

France/Mali Behind Assimi Goita's first call to Macron

Palace Intrigues
Alassane Ouattara, Arlette Soudan-Nonault, Aristides Gomès, Omar Denis Bongo Junior

Intrigues big and small... Every Tuesday, Africa Intelligence takes a peek into the corridors of power in Africa and beyond.

Ivory Coast/Burkina Faso Ouattara wary of the Burkinabe PM

Congo Arlette Soudan-Nonault still enjoying the limelight

Guinea-Bissau Former PM Gomès calls on France and the UN to help

Equatorial Guinea Omar Denis Bongo Junior supports Obiang in Malabo

Central Africa, Gabon
Magistrate Serge Tournaire takes on 'ill-gotten gains' African files

The examining magistrate that the presidents of Brazzaville and Libreville least wanted to see take over the African hearings of the 'ill-gotten cases', Serge Tournaire, is now handling the investigation.

Gabon
Jérôme Andjoua and SGS to continue to secure Maurel & Prom infrastructure

Pertamina offshoot Maurel & Prom renewed in late June the contract of Société Gabonaise de Service (SGS) to provide security at its Port-Gentil and onshore facilities for another two years.

France
Judge Dominique Blanc no longer on 'ill-gotten gains' case

There will be a new judge on the case of the "ill-gotten gains" in France involving the presidential families of Gabon and Congo as the investigations continue and charges pile up.

Gabon
Libreville settles its accounts with pan-African Télésud channel

In July and August, Gabon paid the €650,000 euros it still owed Télésud for promotional work. The pan-African channel, founded in 1998 and now owned by Cameroonian business tycoon Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga, has thus settled its accounts with Libreville.

Gabon
Mebiame family drags intelligence services into its inheritance quarrels

Since his death in 2015, the heirs of former prime minister Léon Mebiame Mba have been fighting over the substantial estate of one of the one country's biggest landowners. The special services have now intervened at the request of the children of his first wife, led by Samuel Mebiame.

France, Gabon
French inquiry into Laccruche detention extends to highest echelons of state

The French investigating judge Elodie Meryanne, who since last year has been investigating the conditions of detention of Ali Bongo's Franco-Gabonese ex-chief of staff Brice Laccruche in Gabon, has been seeking to interview the most senior authorities in Libreville.

Gabon
Sylvia and Pascaline Bongo make up again in latest episode of palace soap opera

They fall out, make up and then fall out again... Now, the Gabonese president's sister and the first lady have patched up up their differences once again. But their reconciliation is having repercussions in the president's family and even on the functioning of the president's office.

Inner circles | Gabon
Omar Denis Jr Bongo cuts an increasingly solitary figure

The 26-year-old half-brother of Ali Bongo and grandson of Denis Sassou Nguesso, Omar Denis Jr Bongo, appears to have been increasingly ostracised by the Gabonese president's clan, who suspect him of harbouring presidential ambitions for 2023.

Spotlight | Gabon
Ali and Pascaline Bongo - a rock and a hard place for Delta Synergie

The increasingly frosty relationship between the presidential couple - Ali Bongo and his wife Sylvia Bongo - and the president's elder sister Pascaline Bongo is complicating the management of the family's assets. Nearly a third of these assets are held [.